Horror

All posts in the Horror category

The official trailer for Concept Media’s upcoming thriller Failing Grace has been released. Rumored to be inspired by director-writer Ryan Stacy’s first year of sobriety, this intense peek into the film has a compelling, queer friendly vibe and makes one intrigued for more information about this soon to be released project.

Love is slicing through the air today. Of course, romance was always in style for such classic Aaron Spelling shows as Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. These productions featured television names of the era and many faded silver screen legends making their way through a variety of romantic trials and tribulations. Hotel, another of the legendary producer’s creations, took these elements to a more dramatic height, focusing on such issues as rape, mental imbalance, racism, child abuse and (even) homosexuality.

Naturally, many performers known for their work in horror films, made their way down the glitzy corridors of Hotel, offering many sensory delights for true fans of terror. Significantly, the amazing Adrienne Barbeau tears through Tomorrows, the 14th episode of the show’s first season. In full on Billie-mode, she rips up the scenery as a well-to-do mother caught in the thrall of her drug dealer. There is nothing quite like the sight of Barbeau slamming cocaine in her arm or watching the snarly way she takes down her man once she realizes her son is in danger. Sadly, her son is played by the handsome and talented Timothy Patrick Murphy. Murphy, best known for his roles on soaps like Search for Tomorrowand Dallas, died at the age of 29 due to complications from AIDS.

Interestingly, the premiere season also featured an episode entitled Faith, Hope and Charitythat concentrated on a lesbian playwright with the astonishingly hip name of Zane Elliott, sensitively played by Carol Lynley (Bunny Lake is Missing, The Night Stalker, Dark Tower). Coming out to her college friend, portrayed by the crisp and classy Barbara Parkins (The Mephisto Waltz, A Taste of Evil, Circle of Fear) proves to almost be disastrous for their relationship. Horrified by the revelation and even questioning her own sexuality, Parkins’ Eileen Weston enters into a loveless one night stand. Of course, the two friends eventually reclaim their compassionate equilibrium, but not before Lynley gets a little (femme) action herself. (Her character, unapologetically, winds up sleeping with one of the establishment’s pert fitness instructors). Thankfully, these issues of prejudice and misunderstanding are actually addressed with an even handedness unusual for the early ‘80s when the show was filmed here. Nicely, the same episode features a jaunty turn from soap actress DeAnna Robbins. Robbins, best known to slasher fans for playing the seductive Lisa in 1981’s Final Exam, nicely puts the screws here to co-star Scott Baio – a fate the notorious, scandal plagued Republican probably deserves in real life – as a rich kleptomaniac with daddy issues.

Unlike contemporaries like Blondie or The Divinyls, Bananarama never appeared on the soundtrack for A Nightmare on Elm Streetflick. That’s unfortunate because the exuberant trio, well known for their cover of Venus, definitely showed more than “pure desire” with tracks like Cruel Summerand Dance with a Stranger.

In fact, the haunting Stranger, which appeared on their best selling 1986 album True Confessions, hints at possible suicide and/or deadly repercussions due to a broken heart.

The beloved group, currently alternating between a longstanding duo and the original line-up, is still making music as of this day, though, so Krueger fans may eventually get a longed for sonic paycheck.

Genre enthusiasts may know writer-director Douglas McKeown best for The Deadly Spawn, the 1983 cult classic that has garnered deserved love from monster kids, worldwide. But McKeown has also spent substantial time as a teacher and a theatrical artist, often directing and designing for the stage. He is also the facilitator of the Queer Stories for Boys workshop, which resulted in an outstanding self-titled 2004 collection, from Thunder’s Mouth Press.

Carefully edited by McKeown, this book shares a wide offering of experiences from a variety of gay men, ultimately, showing the diversity and strength of the community, as a whole.

In particular, Brad Gretter’s stories about growing up legally blind resonate with a wild sense of self-humility and otherness. His recounting of a childhood accident in a grocery store is hysterically funny while his tale about finding his sexual power in a leather club as an adult is both humorous and profound, offering up hope for anyone with self-doubt or esteem issues.

James Campbell’s Miss Betty, meanwhile, is story of pure beauty, elevated by the narrator’s sense of surprise and humbled discovery of how understanding and loving a true family can be. Miss Betty, herself, meanwhile emerges as a colorful character that all readers wish that they had gotten to know.

Activism (highlighted by Ronald Gold’s tales), sexual longing (presented in extremely relatable levels by David Ferguson and Rich Kiamco) and struggles with sports (nicely accentuated by Harry Schulz’s self deprecating memories) are some of the other topics tackled here, as well.

McKeown, himself, ably narrates a couple of tales, too. Liza’s Kiss is a truly enjoyable retelling of his straight brother’s ecstatic encounter with LGBTQA icon Liza Minnelli. Children of the Night, though, will probably resonate with lovers of horror and macabre the best. Here, he tells of his childhood adventures as the neighborhood terror, disguising himself as classic monsters to terrorize some unsuspecting locals. The final moments of this accounting linger the most, though. Anyone who has ever regretted an exchange with a loved one will be haunted by the sorrow expressed by the angry exchange that is documented between the author and his mother…a witness to how powerful (and necessary) this collection is, as a whole.

There were a number of ‘80s girl groups featuring actresses. The Pin-ups, Lisa London’s (The Naked Cage, Sudden Impact) group, had a minor hit with Just About a Dream. Big Trouble, fronted by Bobbie Eakes (The Bold and the Beautiful, All My Children), were produced by the legendary Giorgio Moroder and had a song featured on the Over The Top soundtrack.

American Girls, highlighted by the co-lead vocals of Hilary Shepard, was probably the most musically diverse of the three. With layered musicianship, their single album release on IRS Records was compared to The Go-Go’s, their label mates. But their songs, while pop, were actually a bit more complex than the fun New Wave stylings of their more famous counterparts. This can be evidenced in the harmonic structures of American Girl, which also found a place in celluloid-verse, being featured in the Anthony Michael Hall feature, Out of Bounds.

The striking Shepard, meanwhile, may be better known to genre fans for committing some aggressive antics in Scanner Cop, one of several sequels to David Cronenberg’s horror classic, Scanners. She also made notable appearances on the A Cup of Time episode of Friday the 13th, the Series and Anthony Perkin’s lone directing credit, the horror-comedy Lucky Stiff.

Naturally, Heather Locklear’s got the perfect feathered hair…the perfect apartment…and her stalker is of the handsome picture perfect variety that ‘80s television executives loved to provide for their perfectly eager audiences. City Killer was probably the perfect title to get audiences watching back in that soap-centric decade, as well. Riding high on the successes of Dynasty and TJ Hooker, here pixie cute Locklear faces down the wrath of a lovelorn demolitions expert while, simultaneously, finding romance with a moustache sporting daddy.

Nicely, clear eyed viewers will also spot noir icon Audrey Totter as a secretary in Locklear’s office. Here, Totter provides some old school Hollywood rational amongst this television film’s ridiculously over-the-top offerings.

Built around stock footage of major buildings collapsing in unison, things reach a highpoint in this thriller when swarthy Terrence Knox’s deranged Leo Kalb brings an entire urban oasis to its knees with his demands. Of course, Locklear’s compassionate Andrea is one of them and there may be nothing that the concerned Lieutenant Eckford, played with rascally compassion by Simon and Simon’s Gerald McRaney, can do to stop him.

Highlighted by an action packed ending and by the awkward visual fact that none of the actors are actually anywhere near the rumbling destruction detailed, City Killer is, nicely, also bolstered by a solid, tempered performance from Locklear. Particularly in her first confrontation scene with Knox, Locklear shows, precisely, Andrea’s fear, frustration and anger. In this #metoo generation, harassment perhaps is no longer a flyaway plot point for cheesy entertainment, but here Locklear is able to show that, even in less aware decades, there were always strong emotional repercussions to this kind of abuse.

Locklear, of course, made other genre-centric appearances in such projects as the big budget Stephen King adaptation Firestarter and the charming (very low budget) Return of the Swamp Thing. Interestingly, in a complete turnaround from his work here, Knox wound up playing a concerned father in 1992’s Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice. (Heads up: it wasn’t.)

If Stevie Nicks musically dominated the third season of American Horror Story then, in a fair world, the brilliant Margaret Whiting would have been the focus of the show’s powerful and controversial fourth season. Whiting, who indeed had a song featured on the Freak Showarc, was a multi-generation hit maker with songs charting in the pop, country and easy listening markets throughout the decades.

In fact, her album Wheel of Hurt, featuring her last big hit, owes as much to the sound of Nancy Sinatra as Rosemary Clooney. The World Outside Your Arms is one of that offering’s most poignant expressions.